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The World Health Organization and UNICEF issued warnings last week that a lack of syringes would “paralyze progress” on vaccinations in low- and middle-income countries, putting the gap at 2.2 billion syringes. That’s a conservative estimate. It’s likely the need for syringes will exceed projected supply by at least double those projections. And, as with vaccine doses, the shortage will hit poor countries in Africa and beyond the worst. If we want any hope of ending the pandemic, world leaders must address this shortfall — and fast. (Francis Kateh, Edward Kelley and Jimmy Kolker, 11/4)

The exacerbation of mental health needs during the COVID-19 pandemic has put even more strain on already overburdened health systems and laid bare the inadequacies of a more structurally flawed system. Rates of depression and anxiety continue at more than three times their pre-pandemic levels, and research suggests that these problems will only get worse as more people feel the effects of continued isolation and disruption of social support. (Andy Keller and Bill Smith, 11/5)

Mental Health America’s annual report, “2022 The State of Mental Health in America” is a collection of data across all 50 states and the District of Columbia and seeks to answer questions on the status of individuals living with mental health issues and access to insurance and health care. The report is designed to provide a snapshot of the mental health status in our country so that policy makers and mental health professionals can track changes in the prevalence of mental health issues and access to care and understand how the data can impact legislation and polices moving forward. (Luis Perez, 11/4)

Nearly seven decades ago, polio was the most feared disease in our country because of its high infection rate among children. Just in 1952, nearly 60,000 children were infected. Images of children in iron lungs keeping them alive terrorized parents, as did reports of the thousands who were paralyzed. More than 3,000 children died that year. (Connie Schultz, 11/5)

Two stories in science are worth cheering right now: the amazing amount of knowledge humanity is gathering about COVID-19 and the quietly revolutionary ways we’re accelerating the pace of discovery. First, the knowledge: Last week, a large clinical trial concluded that the cheap antidepressant drug fluvoxamine dramatically lowers the chance that people with COVID-19 will get hospitalized or die. (Derek Thompson, 11/5)

For decades, conservative originalists have denounced Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey—two Supreme Court cases that held that the right to abortion is a fundamental liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment—as egregious rulings unmoored from anything in the Constitution. As Justice Antonin Scalia argued in 1989, the protection of unwritten fundamental rights fell outside the judicial function. “The tools of this job,” he wrote, “are not to be found in the lawyer’s—and hence not the judge’s—workbox.” (David H. Gans, 11/4)

The strain on hospitals fighting on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic has been on full display. But small community hospitals — such as Lawrence General Hospital and Holyoke Medical Center — have long endured impossible financial pressures, and the pandemic could prove to be their breaking point. Community hospitals have a small footprint but an outsize impact on health outcomes in the localities they serve, particularly among the most vulnerable patient populations. They offer high-quality routine care at rates that are much more affordable than the larger teaching hospitals. (Ronald J. Mariano, 11/5)

Drugmaker Merck just shared stunning data on molnupiravir, an oral antiviral it developed to combat COVID-19. In molnupiravir's phase three clinical trial, it cut COVID-19 patients' risk of being hospitalized or dying by 50%. The company is now seeking emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration. (Craig Garthwaite, 11/4)